In this situation, while Pakenham, bearing onward with a conquering violence, was closing on their flank and the fifth division advancing with a storm of fire on their front, the interval between the two attacks was suddenly filled with a whirling cloud of dust, which moving swiftly forward carried within its womb the trampling sound of a charging multitude. As it passed the left of the third division Le Marchant’s heavy horsemen flanked by Anson’s light cavalry, broke forth from it at full speed, and the next instant twelve hundred French infantry though formed in several lines were trampled down with a terrible clamour and disturbance. Bewildered and blinded, they cast away their arms and run through the openings of the British squadrons stooping and demanding quarter, while the dragoons, big men and on big horses, rode onwards smiting with their long glittering swords in uncontroulable power, and the third division followed at speed, shouting as the French masses fell in succession before this dreadful charge.
Nor were these valiant swordsmen yet exhausted. Their own general, Le Marchant, and many officers had fallen, but Cotton and all his staff was at their head, and with ranks confused, and blended together in one mass, still galloping forward they sustained from a fresh column an irregular stream of fire which emptied a hundred saddles; yet with fine courage, and downright force, the survivors broke through this the third and strongest body of men that had encountered them, and lord Edward Somerset, continuing his course at the head of one squadron, with a happy perseverance captured five guns. The French left was entirely broken, more than two thousand prisoners were taken, the French light horsemen abandoned that part of the field, and Thomieres’ division no longer existed as a military body. Anson’s cavalry which had passed quite over the hill and had suffered little in the charge, was now joined by D’Urban’s troopers, and took the place of Le Marchant’s exhausted men; the heavy German dragoons followed in reserve, and with the third and fifth divisions and the guns, formed one formidable line, two miles in advance of where Pakenham had first attacked; and that impetuous officer with unmitigated strength still pressed forward spreading terror and disorder on the enemy’s left.
While these signal events, which occupied about forty minutes, were passing on the allies’ right, a terrible battle raged in the centre. For when the first shock of the third division had been observed from the Arapiles, the fourth division, moving in a line with the fifth, had passed the village of that name under a prodigious cannonade, and vigourously driving Bonet’s troops backwards, step by step, to the southern and eastern heights, obliged them to mingle with Clauzel’s and with Thomieres’ broken remains. When the combatants had passed the French Arapiles, which was about the time of Le Marchant’s charge, Pack’s Portuguese assailed that rock, and the front of battle was thus completely defined, because Foy’s division was now exchanging a distant cannonade with the first and light divisions. However Bonet’s troops, notwithstanding Marmont’s fall, and the loss of their own general, fought strongly, and Clauzel made a surprising effort, beyond all men’s expectations, to restore the battle. Already a great change was visible. Ferey’s division drawn off from the height of Calvaraza Ariba arrived in the centre behind Bonet’s men; the light cavalry, Boyer’s dragoons, and two divisions of infantry, from the forest, were also united there, and on this mass of fresh men, Clauzel rallied the remnants of his own and Thomieres’ division. Thus by an able movement, Sarrut’s, Brennier’s, and Ferey’s unbroken troops, supported by the whole of the cavalry, were so disposed as to cover the line of retreat to Alba de Tormes, while Maucune’s division was still in mass behind the French Arapiles, and Foy’s remained untouched on the right.
But Clauzel, not content with having brought the separated part of his army together and in a condition to effect a retreat, attempted to stem the tide of victory in the very fulness of its strength and roughness. His hopes were founded on a misfortune which had befallen general Pack; for that officer ascending the French Arapiles in one heavy column, had driven back the enemy’s skirmishers and was within thirty yards of the summit, believing himself victorious, when suddenly the French reserves leaped forward from the rocks upon his front, and upon his left flank. The hostile masses closed, there was a thick cloud of smoke, a shout, a stream of fire, and the side of the hill was covered to the very bottom with the dead the wounded and the flying Portuguese, who were scoffed at for this failure without any justice; no troops could have withstood that crash upon such steep ground, and the propriety of attacking the hill at all seems very questionable. The result went nigh to shake the whole battle. For the fourth division had just then reached the southern ridge of the basin, and one of the best regiments in the service was actually on the summit when twelve hundred fresh adversaries, arrayed on the reverse slope, charged up hill; and as the British fire was straggling and ineffectual, because the soldiers were breathless and disordered by the previous fighting, the French who came up resolutely and without firing won the crest. They were even pursuing down the other side when two regiments placed in line below, checked them with a destructive volley.
This vigorous counter-blow took place at the moment when Pack’s defeat permitted Maucune, who was no longer in pain for the Arapiles hill, to menace the left flank and rear of the fourth division, but the left wing of the fortieth regiment immediately wheeled about and with a rough charge cleared the rear. Maucune would not engage himself more deeply at that time, but general Ferey’s troops pressed vigorously against the front of the fourth division, and Brennier did the same by the first line of the fifth division, Boyer’s dragoons also came on rapidly, and the allies being outflanked and over-matched lost ground. Fiercely and fast the French followed and the fight once more raged in the basin below. General Cole had before this fallen deeply wounded, and Leith had the same fortune, but Beresford promptly drew Spry’s Portuguese brigade from the second line of the fifth division and thus flanked the advancing columns of the enemy; yet he also fell desperately wounded, and Boyer’s dragoons then came freely into action because Anson’s cavalry had been checked after Le Marchant’s charge by a heavy fire of artillery.
The crisis of the battle had now arrived and the victory was for the general who had the strongest reserves in hand. Wellington, who was seen that day at every point of the field exactly when his presence was most required, immediately brought up from the second line, the sixth division, and its charge was rough, strong, and successful. Nevertheless the struggle was no slight one. The men of general Hulse’s brigade, which was on the left, went down by hundreds, and the sixty-first and eleventh regiments won their way desperately and through such a fire, as British soldiers only, can sustain. Some of Boyer’s dragoons also breaking in between the fifth and sixth divisions slew many men, and caused some disorder in the fifty-third; but that brave regiment lost no ground, nor did Clauzel’s impetuous counter-attack avail at any point, after the first burst, against the steady courage of the allies. The southern ridge was regained, the French general Menne was severely, and general Ferey, mortally wounded, Clauzel himself was hurt, and the reserve of Boyer’s dragoons coming on at a canter were met and broken by the fire of Hulse’s noble brigade. Then the changing current of the fight once more set for the British. The third division continued to outflank the enemy’s left, Maucune abandoned the French Arapiles, Foy retired from the ridge of Calvariza, and the allied host righting itself as a gallant ship after a sudden gust, again bore onwards in blood and gloom, for though the air, purified by the storm of the night before, was peculiarly clear, one vast cloud of smoke and dust rolled along the basin, and within it was the battle with all its sights and sounds of terror.
When the English general had thus restored the fight in the centre, he directed the commander of the first division to push between Foy and the rest of the French army, which would have rendered it impossible for the latter to rally or escape; but this order was not executed, and Foy’s and Maucune’s divisions were skilfully used by Clauzel to protect the retreat. The first, posted on undulating ground and flanked by some squadrons of dragoons, covered the roads to the fords of Huerta and Encina; the second, reinforced with fifteen guns, was placed on a steep ridge in front of the forest, covering the road to Alba de Tormes; and behind this ridge, the rest of the army, then falling back in disorder before the third, fifth, and sixth divisions, took refuge. Wellington immediately sent the light division, formed in two lines and flanked by some squadrons of dragoons, against Foy; and he supported them by the first division in columns, flanked on the right by two brigades of the fourth division which he had drawn off from the centre when the sixth division restored the fight. The seventh division and the Spaniards followed in reserve, the country was covered with troops, and a new army seemed to have risen out of the earth.
Foy throwing out a cloud of skirmishers retired slowly by wings, turning and firing heavily from every rise of ground upon the light division, which marched steadily forward without returning a shot, save by its skirmishers; for three miles the march was under this musketry, which was occasionally thickened by a cannonade, and yet very few men were lost, because the French aim was baffled, partly by the twilight, partly by the even order and rapid gliding of the lines. But the French general Desgraviers was killed, and the flanking brigades from the fourth division having now penetrated between Maucune and Foy, it seemed difficult for the latter to extricate his troops from the action; nevertheless he did it and with great dexterity. For having increased his skirmishers on the last defensible ridge, along the foot of which run a marshy stream, he redoubled his fire of musketry, and made a menacing demonstration with his horsemen just as the darkness fell; the British guns immediately opened their fire, a squadron of dragoons galloped forwards from the left, the infantry, crossing the marshy stream, with an impetuous pace hastened to the summit of the hill, and a rough shock seemed at hand, but there was no longer an enemy; the main body of the French had gone into the thick forest on their own left during the firing, and the skirmishers fled swiftly after, covered by the smoke and by the darkness.
Meanwhile Maucune maintained a noble battle. He was outflanked and outnumbered, but the safety of the French army depended on his courage; he knew it, and Pakenham, marking his bold demeanour, advised Clinton, who was immediately in his front, not to assail him until the third division should have turned his left. Nevertheless the sixth division was soon plunged afresh into action under great disadvanatge, for after being kept by its commander a long time without reason, close under Maucune’s batteries which ploughed heavily through the ranks, it was suddenly directed by a staff officer to attack the hill. Assisted by a brigade of the fourth division, the troops then rushed up, and in the darkness of the night the fire shewed from afar how the battle went. On the side of the British a sheet of flame was seen, sometimes advancing with an even front, sometimes pricking forth in spear heads, now falling back in waving lines, and anon darting upwards in one vast pyramid, the apex of which often approached yet never gained the actual summit of the mountain; but the French musketry, rapid as lightning, sparkled along the brow of the height with unvarying fulness, and with what destructive effects the dark gaps and changing shapes of the adverse fire showed too plainly. Yet when Pakenham had again turned the enemy’s left, and Foy’s division had glided into the forest, Maucune’s task was completed, the effulgent crest of the ridge became black and silent, and the whole French army vanished as it were in the darkness.
Meanwhile Wellington, who was with the leading regiment of the light division, continued to advance towards the ford of Huerta leaving the forest to his right, for he thought the Spanish garrison was still in the castle of Alba de Tormes, and that the enemy must of necessity be found in a confused mass at the fords. It was for this final stroke that he had so skilfully strengthened his left wing, nor was he diverted from his aim by marching through standing corn where no enemy could have preceded him; nor by Foy’s retreat into the forest, because it pointed towards the fords of Encina and Gonzalo, which that general might be endeavouring to gain, and the right wing of the allies would find him there. A squadron of French dragoons also burst hastily from the forest in front of the advancing troops, soon after dark, and firing their pistols passed at full gallop towards the ford of Huerta, thus indicating great confusion in the defeated army, and confirming the notion that its retreat was in that direction. Had the castle of Alba been held, the French could not have carried off a third of their army, nor would they have been in much better plight if Carlos D’España, who soon discovered his error in withdrawing the garrison, had informed Wellington of the fact; but he suppressed it and suffered the colonel who had only obeyed his orders to be censured; the left wing therefore continued their march to the ford without meeting any enemy, and, the night being far spent, were there halted; the right wing, exhausted by long fighting, had ceased to pursue after the action with Maucune, and thus the French gained Alba unmolested; but the action did not terminate without two remarkable accidents. While riding close behind the forty-third regiment, Wellington was struck in the thigh by a spent musket-ball, which passed through his holster; and the night picquets had just been set at Huerta, when sir Stapleton Cotton, who had gone to the ford and returned a different road, was shot through the arm by a Portuguese sentinel whose challenge he had disregarded. These were the last events of this famous battle, in which the skill of the general was worthily seconded by troops whose ardour may be appreciated by the following anecdotes.